EVENTS

BURLINGTON, VT— Businesses and government struggle to keep pace with cyber-network intrusions that come from all over the world.

At a Business Forward roundtable discussion in Burlington on Thursday, Douglas Smith, Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector at the Department of Homeland Security, heard from local academic and business leaders about plans for educating students and employees about the perils of network breaches.

“There are two kinds of businesses,” Smith said. “Companies who’ve been hacked and know it, and companies who have been hacked.”

Policymakers like Smith confront the threat daily, but understand that it moves faster than reforms designed to prevent it. Businesses increasingly understand the need to educate employees on how to ensure that cyber infrastructure and intellectual property remain secure.

“If we’re going to solve the challenges in cyber, we’re going to solve them at the local level. The way we’re really going to solve them is with the leaders of tomorrow.” He said he meant 19- and 20-year-olds coming out of college programs in cybersecurity like the one at Champlain College, of which he spoke highly.

Smith said the discussion was an opportunity to exchange ideas about what’s working and what’s not, and for him, “to hear what’s going on, what are we missing, how can we better connect the dots.”